Queensland's digital, innovation and technology festival.

October 24-28, Brisbane

About Something Fest. 2022

We are infinitely more powerful when united. But it takes a little something special to bring everyone together.

Introducing Something Fest. Queensland's digital, innovation and technology festival.

Running from October 24 to 28 and spearheaded by the teams at Something Digital, River City Labs and Proptech BNE. - Something Fest is created around three core principles:

1)  Bringing people together. People need people. After two years of unprecedented distancing, it's time to bring everyone back together ... in real life. From startups and small businesses to large corporations, government, and educational institutions ... Something Fest. will have something for everyone.

2) Enabling collaboration. Our ecosystem is full of incredibly talented humans. And when we unite and collaborate, we become infinitely more powerful. Something Fest. will focus heavily on enabling collaboration across our ecosystem.

3) Amplifying our success. Queensland has a lot to be proud of and now is our time to shout it from the rooftops. Queensland needs something big. And that something... is Something Fest. 
To find out more about Something Fest. vist the festival page now!
Presented in collaboration with:

About Proptech Founders Forum 2022

The Australian Proptech Founders Forum was founded to serve the ever-growing national property technology founder network by creating an environment for connections, engagement, learning, and collaboration on a peer-to-peer level for Australian founders.

In the 2022 Australian Proptech Industry Map, one of the key pieces of feedback received from the proptech economy was need for an event/initiative that allowed founder-to-founder connections to be made in an environment where founders could have their guards down.

Australia has some of the world's most innovative technologies for the property economy and this forum is here to create an environment where founders at all stages of their business life cycle can share their success, learning, and opportunities both up and down the life-cycle ladder. The Australian Proptech Founders Forum is an exclusive invite-only event for proptech founders and is part of the broader, Something Fest. conference which is a leading digital innovation conference spanning a full week in October.

The Proptech BNE. Founders Forum will be hosted on the 27th of October 2022 at the iconic Brisbane Powerhouse along the Brisbane River. 

This is not your typical conference, Proptech BNE. has purposely created an environment where founders are able to build tangible relationships with other proptech founders. This is an invite-only event and will be open to proptech founders exclusively. This is not a business development opportunity.
Proptech BNE. Founders Forum Supported By:

2022 Proptech Founders Forum Theme

The BIG 100
The Evolution of Australian Proptech Companies 
The structure for the 2022 Founders Forum has been curated to deliver maximum learning impact through four keynote presentation followed by two panel discussions.

The theme for this year's content was born out of founder feedback in the 2022 Australian Proptech Industry Map (APIM) survey. The APIM survey received feedback from over 140 Australian proptech founders with a considerable amount of that feedback indicating a need for founder-to-founder collaboration and networking, and thus, the Founders Forum was born.

For the four keynote speakers, Proptech BNE. has curated a theme that highlights the different stages within the evolution of a proptech business and centred around The BIG 100. 

Meet The Keynote Speakers: 

Brad Filliponi
Co-Founder @ BoxBrownie
With over 17 years’ experience as a professional real estate photographer, Brad has a deep understanding of what it takes to showcase a home in its best light.

Brad obtained his Australian real estate sales agent license while young and saw a gap in the market back when he was running customer service for a prestige real estate office, specialising in multi-million-dollar deep waterfront property. Spending close to 2 decade’s photographing homes all day and editing them all night, Brad decided to create the world’s greatest photo editing website with an editing menu, for everyone from professional photographers to property managers which is now used by over 117 countries today + counting.
 During this session, Brad will be sharing his personal experience in launching BoxBrownie and lift the hood on what the First 100 Days looked like for his organisation. 

Wayne Gerard
Co-Founder @ RedEye & Queensland's Chief Entrepreneur
Wayne is the CEO and Co-founder of RedEye. Founded in Brisbane in 2012, RedEye’s cloud and mobile solutions are purpose-built for organisations that own and operate critical infrastructure. RedEye’s customers’ manage more than $250bn worth of assets. RedEye has offices in Australia,and North America, NZ and the Philippines and is backed by the world’s leading infrastructure investors including Macquarie Capital, Energy Innovation Capital (USA), QIC.

Wayne was awarded the Queensland Entrepreneur of the Year Percy Award in 2015, he currently serves as a Governor of AMCHAM QLD, on the board of WaterStart QLD and was appointed Queensland's Chief Entrepreneur in June 21.

During this session, Wayne will discuss how he grew RedEye to the company it is today and the challenges/opportunities that come with building a global team that has supported over 100 Staff.  
Sean Dilijore
CEO and Chairman @ SimPRO
Sean has been the Chairman and CEO of simPRO since October 2012. Prior to taking on this position, Sean held various other directorships with private companies involved in the mining industry and remains involved in this sector.

Sean has significant experience, both from a legal standpoint and as a director, in assisting companies to manage growth, expand their business and increase their profitability.

To date, simPRO has raised almost $400 million US and in 2021, simPRO announced their latest round of $350 million from K1, and Level Equity.

During this session, Sean will be sharing his knowledge on what it takes to be a technology business looking to raise over $100 Million dollars to provide valuable insights into his personal experience. 

Meet The Panel Speakers: 

Sarah Bell 
Co-Founder @ Aire Software 
Commentator, agitator, and innovator, Sarah Bell is a co-founder of the proptech startup AiRE, Artificial Intelligence for Real Estate.

She helps real estate businesses to solve the problems of cost and scale by up-skilling existing resources as well as helping them transition to digital resources using Aires digital employee, Rita.

Sarah is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Middlesex University (London) researching professional practice in Trust and Ethics in emergent technology.

During this session, Sarah will be sharing her insights in what it is like for a founder to have built a successful company and go through an acquisition process. Sarah will be touching on what her and her team experienced the first 100 Days Post Exit.


Capital in Proptech
Unpacking Key Trends within the Capital Sector for Proptech
The rate of capital engagement within the national and international proptech economy has increased at exponential rates over the past decade. Venture capital, corporate venture capital, private equity, crowdsourcing and high net worth firms have all dramatically increased the amount of deal flow in proptech.

With this global increase in capital entering the market targeted towards digital/technological based solutions servicing the property economy, there is cause to examine existing and emerging trends, what capital firms are looking for when evaluating tech companies and what metrics of success are of the highest value.

To discuss this and much more, Proptech BNE. is delighted to be hosting a panel discussion with leading capital professionals from within the property sector chaired by Melissa Hardy From QIC and a Proptech BNE. Council member for 2022
Industry X Proptech
How to Build a Stronger, Collaborative Industry
There is no doubt that for there to be real, ongoing, sustainable change within the property economy, collaboration with technology is crucial, however, over the past couple of years, continuous friction have occurred between the proptech economy and property industry.

To discuss key fiction pain points and how to overcome them, Proptech BNE. is proud to be hosting a panel discussion chaired by Louisa Dickins, Founder of LMRE Global featuring Antonia Mercorella, CEO of the REIQ, Dion Jensen, Co-Founder of BlocX and David Wilcox, Director at Ubris.

This session is focused on unpacking key blockers for increased engagement and technology adoptions on both sides of the coin and outlining a pathway forward created by industry and the proptech economy in collaboration.